Video Of The Week: Mozart's Sister

I didn't think I'd think much of Mozart's Sister's song, Mozart's Sister. Ever since Big Country made that song In A Big Country in 1983 (I was 5 years old at the time), I was appalled by the vapidness of self-reference by musicians who feel they're oh-so-fucking clever, and I've been distrustful of most who have tried since.

I can in listening to Mozart's Sister without knowing anything about her other than her real name being Caila Thompson-Hannant and she being a friend-of-a-friend. I knew a bit about Mozart's actual sister, Maria Anna (Marianne) Mozart, four years older than Wolfgang Amadeus, and his main inspiration in life - their father taught her to play music first, and baby Amadeus was merely following in her footsteps - until she reached the age where daddy felt her place as a woman was in a(nother man's) kitchen and decided who she should get married to, and kept touring with his younger, male genius.

Then I listened to the song and watched the video. The first minute, I thought to myself: ''oh well, this won't make the Video Of the Week'', but the Cyndi Lauper-like vocals and melodies really drew me in, and the universal theme of being ''an eternal #2'' is rendered so well that I did a complete 180 and thought '' this is the only video worthy of being featured this week'' less than a minute later.

Her sound, though reminiscent of Lauper's a lot*, is still grounded in modern-era electro pop, but done with enough indie spirit that instead of having an over-polished feel, it sounds a bit edgy. The visual syle is reminiscent of fellow Montréal contemporary Grimes (everyday places, shot ina simple, straightforward manner in regular light) but, to be fair - and this is probably where the illusion of Mozart's Sister gets shattered a bit - if you sit Caila Thompson-Hannant and Grimes next to each other at a bar, I'll bet the first one gets hit on first 95 times out of 100, so there's no way she actually feels ''like a #2'' on most days, first because of her looks, sure, but also because she's actually really good at what she does, too; she's a #1 posing as a #2 to not seem pretentious.

But I can live with that. Check her out:



* By the way, I'll take Cyndi Lauper over Madonna and Kylie Minogue any day of the week, and five times on Saturdays.